Tag......you're it!

My day got off to a good start and finished even better. I got to Bristol in enough time to get a coffee and grab a good seat at the conference I was attending with three colleagues. As I drove away from Rock HQ Daffodil, our dumbest Ryeland lamb benefited from modern technology as I phoned Tracey to tell her Daffodil was stuck in the fence. Again. 5000 acres of common land behind her but she has to stick her head through the fence in front just to reach that oh so tasty piece of grass. You would think the experience of losing half of each ear from this grazing technique would deter her, but no she persists!

While in Thornbury I did think of calling in on JJ and giving him a shock, four social workers arriving on his doorstep would have been a bit too many to provide tea and hobnobs for so he was lucky.

I got back to Rock HQ just ahead of The Stablesprite who was delivering our next consignment of piglets, pictured below. These are the recruits for pig club. For once all went to plan, the new piglets were carried into the chicken shed to wait quietly while Patches and Pixie were walked from the excuse for a barn and into the trailer. Last year trying to coax four fully grown pigs into the trailer caused tempers to flare on all sides of the food chain as they ran up and down the lane instead of getting into the trailer. Tonight the two pigs followed me, and their last supper, up the ramp and into the horse box. Success! In fifteen minutes the whole operation was over. No shouting. No death threats. All done in a proper well organised fashion. All that was left was to tag the pigs. That's where it all started to unravel.

Now the tagger was exactly where I left it, or rather I thought it was. The tags were in the pantry but no tagger. It wasn't where I had left it for a whole year gathering dust on an oak beam in the barn. This could only mean I had decided to put it somewhere safe, which could mean anywhere in the universe. My somewhere safes have no logic but obviously seem a good idea at the time, which is why important documents are found in the bathroom, car keys are found hanging on coat hooks (under several coats) and most recently the spare house key that is always hung somewhere safe outside in case of emergency was carefully transferred to a drawer in the living room which was very safe but totally inaccessible when I needed it when I locked myself out a few weeks ago. Quite why I decided that the best place for the tagger would be on top of the fridge has long been forgotten but its safe location took over an hour to discover. Had it not been found the pigs could not have been tagged and so not sent to Mr Whirlpool and I think I would have been spending the night with the pigs for causing so much trouble.